A typical children's gym set usually includes several pieces of play equipment suspended from a horizontal crossbar supported above the ground. These items of play equipment include swings, rings, slides and often a so-called glide ride or swing-for-two. This glide comprises a pair of parallel tubes which hang down from the crossbar. The upper ends of the tubes are pivotally connected to a bracket mounted to the crossbar, the lower ends of the tubes being pivotally connected to a short link. Pivotally mounted near the lower ends of the tubes is an elongated horizontal seat member able to support riders at opposite ends. This parallel arrangement of tubes and the pivotally connected seat member form a pantograph so that when the tubes swing back and forth about their connections to crossbar, the seat member remains more or less parallel to the ground. Thus two children sitting at the opposite ends of the seat member can swing back and forth with little danger of their sliding off that member.
It has been found, however, that in practice, children often tend to stand on the seat member or other elements of the swing frame while the ride is in motion. This practice places their hands and fingers within reach of the pivotal connections between the upper ends of the seat-supporting tubes and the bracket mounted to the gym set's crossbar. Due to the nature of these pivotal connections, pinch points are created there which have in the past caused injury to some children.
It has been proposed to avoid this problem by redesigning the bracket which connects the glide to the crossbar to eliminate the pinch points. However, such proposals have not been implemented thus far because they have been found to be too expensive. It has also been suggested to encage the glide-supporting brackets so as to isolate them from the children's straying fingers. However, these suggestions have not resulted in any practical solution to the problem either. Some of these protective cages have tended to be so large and obtrusive that they spoil the overall appearance of the play gym. Some others have proved to be too costly and some failed to perform their protective function in that in accommodating the swinging motion of the glide ride, they have left avenues of approach to the pinch points.